


Take a heart and shred it to pieces

by Talimee



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Prompt Fill, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-07-23 09:24:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16156226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talimee/pseuds/Talimee
Summary: Collection of thirty-one prompt-ficlets, all of a sad, angsty and/or disturbing nature. Whumptober might be over but I still need sad fics to work through my Banana Fish feelings.Will contain spoilers for the entire manga and additional stories. List of characters and tags will be updated as I go along. Warnings are for the entire series and not for individual stories.Chapter 1 is atable of contentswith more specific warnings, spoilers for anime & manga, and a short summary for each ficlet. Check there first to avoid potentially hard-to-deal-with topics.New: prompt 7 - Kidnapped





	1. Table of Contents

**1 - Stabbed**

Rating: Teen and up  
Warnings: Major Character Death  
Character: Ash Lynx  
Tags: character insight, spoiler for end of manga  
Spoilers: Manga ending

Summary: A retelling of Ash's final moments at the library.

 

**2 - Bloody Hands**

Rating: Teen and up  
Warnings: none  
Character: Ash Lynx  
Tags: character insight, memories, self-loathing, guilty conscience  
Spoilers: none really, episode 12, volume 7+8 if you squint

Summary: To atone for one's sins means to remember and to regret. Ash can't do that.

 

**3 - Insomnia**

Rating: Gen  
Warnings: none  
Character: Eiji Okumura  
Tags: inner monologue, suppression of feelings, angst, concern  
Spoilers: episode 13, volume 8

Summary: Sleeping next to Ash means lonesome and long nights for Eiji.

 

**4 - "No, Stop!"**

Rating: Mature  
Warnings: all of them! non-con/rape, underage, murder, emotional and physical violence against children  
Characters: Lee Yut-Lung, Lee Hua-Lung, Ash Lynx  
Tags: alternating POV  
Spoilers: episode 6, volume 4 (Ash), episode 8, volume 5 + 17 (Yut-Lung)

Summary: Yut-Lung's and Ash's worlds are destroyed. They are six and seven years old, and broken beyond recovery.

 

**5 - Poisoned**

Rating: Teen  
Warnings: brain-washing, forced behaviour, drug-use (Banana Fish), coercion  
Characters: Shorter Wong  
Tags: regret, inner monologue (kinda), change of self  
Spoilers: episodes 7-9, volumes 4-6

Summary: Shorter Wong had been soaring. Now, he's bound and controlled.

 

**6 - Betrayed**

Rating: Teen  
Warnings: none  
Characters: Lao Yen-Thai  
Tags: lurking, reminiscence, hatred, feelings of betrayal, sense of loss towards livestyle and family members  
Spoilers: volume 14 and up

Summary: Lao loathes the now and longs for the past.

 

**7 - Kidnapped**

Rating: Gen  
Warnings: none  
Character: Skipper, Ash Lynx  
Tags: advisory pamphlet, dark humor  
Spoilers: episode 2, volume 2

Summary: Once it wasn't a drill, they did everything wrong.


	2. Stabbed

He doesn't even feel pain, the knife is so sharp. Not at first, though. Then Lao withdraws the switchblade and friction makes his body _burn_. Fighting down shock and terror before they drown him, he pulls his gun. Shoots. Kills again, like swatting a fly.

„… you missed all my vital organs, you idiot …“ Lao's got a major vein, though, and his intestines. It's gonna be messy and painful and slow.

„So did you, asshole …“, the Chinese gasps. „Good enough, though. Neither of us is gonna make it.“

Lao is lucky. He breathes his last and just ends. Easy.

Ash trembles, hand pressed to his side. Falls to his knees and scrambles for the pages of Eiji's letter. Nothing, he feels, is more important _right now_ than knowing what Eiji tells him in the rest of it.

He fights his way up the stairs, back into the library. The pain is so strong, he wants to get on his hands and knees and just curl into himself. But if he does that he'll never get up again.

A seat near a window. A table for his own. He slides into the chair, bites down his pain-filled gasps.

Smoothes out Eiji's letter.

_"I think I wanted to protect you from your future. Because your fate was sweeping you away, like a flood."_

His world narrows down to Eiji's words. They anchor his self as the library around him dwindles into swirls of noise and motion. He's wrecked with shivers, drenched in cold sweat.

_"You can change your fate."_

He's changing it. He's taking the meaning in Eiji's words and makes it come true. He will leave this maelstrom of violence and casual sin once and for all.

_"You are not alone, Ash."_

Warmth blossoms in his chest, and spreads.

_"I am with you. My soul is always with you."_

He hears him. This sweet, gentle soul. His saviour.

_"I know we'll see each other again, someday –"_

Images flash in front of his darkening vision: dark eyes, dark hair, wooded hills, a shrine at a beach. He'll wait for Eiji. In Izumo, by the sea. Where the gods are from. He will be there.

Ash dies, listening to the sound of waves. He smiled.

 


	3. Bloody Hands

Once in a while he reaches into his backpocket and feels for the list.

He may be talking to Alex at the time, just shifting his stance, casually slipping his hand back. Or he is by himself – walking his turf or reading in the library – and he pulls it out for a moment. Thrice folded, half the size of his palm. He forgot to take it out once and Eiji accidentally washed it. The paper is the worse for wear for it, the ballpoint-ink smudged in places and the creases so broken and frayed that unfolding and refolding the list would likely destroy it.

Not that it matters. Ash hasn't unfolded the list ever since: he knows its contents by heart.

He also does _not_ know the entries and that is what makes him disgusted with himself.

The first name on it is Carter Wilson.

 _It's true what they say: You never forget your First_ , Ash thinks and smiles grimly to himself. He answers the night-portier's greeting with a nod and steps outside. Putting on shades, he shrugs deeper into his jacket and begins walking.

He knows the next few entries as well. Remembers recalling the names of those men with nauseating ease as he jotted them down a while back, when he compiled the list for the first time. Years ago, when he met them, each man had been a new horror heaped upon him and he couldn't do anything but remember their names and faces. It had changed when his training with Golzine began. After that, everything was a blur of reaction – faces, hands, bodies, seldom names, often only circumstances.

Fallen leaves ghost around his feet as he unlocks his car. A chill night wind reaches under his jacket and is cut off when he slips into the driver's seat and slams the door shut. A moment of quiet, before he pulls the list out again and unfolds it one last time. Stares at it.

Among the columns of names and descriptions only one name is important to Ash. Where every other entry is neatly recorded, the shaky lines on this one give testimony to his pain and self-loathing.

It says Shorter Wong.

The list ends there. And in a metaphysical sense it does for Ash as well, even though he continues adding the dead he's made during the last weeks.

He has killed a friend. Whatever Eiji thinks, there is no attonement for that and no redemption to be had for Shorter's murder. Shorter's name on his list means the end for Ash's hope for better days. He knows it. He feels that it is true.

Ash slips the list back into his pocket and shifts the car into gear. Pulls out and speeds towards the meeting point Cain has named. He half hopes that Frederick Arthur will never make it to his list, but if he does, Ash knows that he'll just keep adding to it.

 


	4. Insomnia

You're crying again. It's not what woke me up, but it is what is keeping me from getting back to sleep. I turn on my side, glancing over to your bed, your form huddled into yourself under the blankets. It's too dark to see you clearly but I image your shaking form. Your breath sounds shaky, so the rest of you most likely is as well.

I long to go over. I want nothing more to slip out of my bed and into yours, wrap my arms around you and just hold you until you feel better. But I don't. I can't. We are close, but are we that close? Can my embrace bring you comfort when the touches of faceless men in the dark are giving you your nightmares in the first place?

Words have entered into your crying now. You call for your mother. What mother, I wonder. You told me your mother left you when you were just a toddler. So, is it Jennifer? The warm-hearted woman who was shot before your eyes? I know you feel guilty for her death. I do as well.

In the end I do slip out of bed. Grab my clothes, a fresh pair of briefs and tiptoe out of the room. It's not too early to start preparing breakfast.

The bedroom door closes off the noises of your fretful sleep. But it's sleep nevertheless and you need your rest. Sleep Ash, sleep dreamless and deep.

I'll wait for you to wake, rubbing my tired, stinging eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on a mini-vacation, so no new chapters until I return. Expect a fic-dump sometimes next week. ^^


	5. "No, Stop!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yut-Lung's and Ash's worlds are destroyed. They are six and seven years old, and broken beyond recovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is _it_. The chapter that merits all those **Archive Warnings** up there. I trust in your judgement to take them seriously.

Father is not yet cold in his grave when the door to their house flies open.

Yut-Lung sees a wave of black-clad men rush in before mother snatches him up and starts to run. He's too startled to cry but mother's frantic whispering in his ear, her fear, makes his stomach turn to ice. Why are these people here? Who are they to break down doors and push their servants aside as if they were insects? He sees them smashing through furniture and all the precious things father had cherished and gifted to mother as they close in on them. Yut-Lung slings his thin arms around mother's neck and buries his face in her shoulder. He doesn't want to see them! He wants them to disappear. Maybe they will, if he can't see them …

 

It's not the click of the door that makes Aslan jump, it's the quiet snick of the lock after that. He turns around to Coach Wilson, lips halfway through forming a question when the looming figure of the man makes his throat close up.

“Now – about that soda, Ash …”, Coach Wilson rumbles and reaches down to undo his fly.

Aslan instinctively takes a step back, getting some space between himself and the man but stepping deeper into his lair at the same time.

Griff had always warned him against talking to strangers, he thinks dumbfounded as Coach Wilson grabs him and throws him onto the bed, but no one ever told him to be cautious of the people he knows!

 

He cries out when mother stumbles and falls forward. She turns in mid-fall, landing heavy on her side but Yut-Lung has no time to notice her attempt at protecting him. Like a pack of wolves their pursuers are on them, two of them grabbing mother by her arms, a third yanking her up by her braid. Someone's hands slip under his armpits and he is lifted up, his brother's voice hissing at him to stop struggling.

He recognizes _all_ of his brothers, has seen them for the first time just this morning at father's funeral. No servants, no guards – mother and he are surrounded by family. He screams when they start punching her.

 

“Keep quiet and I won't hurt you.”

Coach's breath across his face makes him gag, the tone in his voice crawls over Aslan like ants. Both his arms are held in an iron grip above his head and Aslan's shoulders hurt from the strain.

Dreams have never hurt before, he thinks in confusion.

He feels another hand on his back, broad and possessive, sliding down, down and under. Fingers curl around his trouser's hem. He panics.

“Shh”, he hears. “It'll be good, I promise.”

He wants to scream when his clothes are ripped off his body, but he has trouble breathing through the dishtowel in his mouth. Cold air ghosts across his bottom, before the hand is back, kneading and stroking him. He doesn't understand what is happening to him. This isn't real, right? He feels faint, as if he's not really there at all.

His legs are pulled apart.

“I have wanted you for so long.” Coach licks his ear. “So pretty.”

He hears spitting.

“Now, keep still, little soldier … my sweet, sweet Ash.”

 _Something_ slides up his legs and between his cheeks. Something big and warm. He cannot move, he cannot breathe. He lies there, paralyzed,  
_Please, no!!_  
and is torn apart.

 

Teeth chattering and shaking he hangs in Hua-Lung's grip. His whole world is a dark tunnel. And at the center of it …

“Mother”, he whimpers through the bile in his throat.

But no one hears him over the ruckus as his older brothers throw themselves between his mother's legs, back and forth, up and down, with a vigor that screams of lust fueled by hatred.

Mother's screams have stopped, but Yut-Lung still hears them echo in his head: Her promises to leave without ever returning, her pleas to let them go, her cries for them to _stop, please, stop, please, STOP, PLEASE!!_

His brother speeds up. Thrashing between mother's pale legs as he forces them even further apart.

It's too much. Yut-Lung's world shrinks even further, his senses starting to black out.

“Don't look away”, Hua-Lung hisses and shakes him awake. “This is what happens to traitors and vermin.”

_Then why aren't YOU lying there?!_

The thought is gone as fast as it appeared but he can feel the footprints it has left in his heart. When Wan-Lung takes out a gun and shoots mother as if she was a stray dog, the trail grows into a chasm.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are two different names for the baseball coach given in the source material. It's Carter Wilson in the anime (ep. 6) and Robert Peterson in "A Private Opinion". I went with Wilson b/c the anime is more accessible to people, which does not mean that I think the information given in the side-stories is wrong.


	6. Poisoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shorter Wong had been soaring. Now, he's bound and controlled.

Sweat on metal. Rough edges cutting into flesh, chafing around his wrists. He fights, he strains against his bindings. Raves against the injustice that has befallen him. He cannot wrap his mind around the change in his world. The ground he has stood on has tilted and he has been falling ever since.

Dark eyes staring into his.

_The plan has changed. You will do my bidding now._

He has been flying all his life. Coursing the air, navigating life and love and responsibility – never too much hardship, never too little fun. He has been a dog on a long leash. Now his masters have come tugging him down.

Dark eyes staring into his.

_Please, forgive me, I had no choice! I swear, I'll protect him! I'm sorry!_

Eiji's body is weighing him down. His gentleness is a knife carving his insides apart. Even here, in the laboratory, half-naked under a cold light, he can still feel his warmth against his chest.

Coldness slips into his veins with a sting. So much pain …

Sweat on metal, rough edges cutting into his wrists as he strains against his shackles.

Dark eyes staring into his.

_He must carve them out._

 


	7. Betrayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lao loathes the now and longs for the past.

He was getting used to standing around in dark corners, looking out at the going-ons around him. Judging. It was a habit he didn't want to get used to, but it did happen and Lao could do nothing to stop it.

He used to be out there, two steps behind and one to the side of his brother.

Four steps behind Shorter. His left-hand man.

He still had Sing's back – God knew he would never stop looking out for his brother! – but he was no longer a confidant.

He watched him confer with Ash and Cain, watched how his little brother stood his ground discussing tactics and maneuvers with the two older, more experienced gang-leaders. Lao felt proud, but his pride turned sour when he caught the glimpse of admiration on Sing's face.

 _Why are you looking at Ash like that?_ , he raged silently at Sing. _He doesn't deserve it!_

Shorter had deserved it! Their respect and their loyalty. Their trust in Shorter had made Ash Lynx welcome in Chinatown. And he had betrayed that trust and had punched a hole in all their hearts when he pulled a trigger at a friend.

Losing Shorter had hurt. Losing Sing was pain beyond endurance and Lao felt that there was nothing he could do to stop it. They were drifting apart. Where he had been able to tell what his baby brother was thinking, where he had been able to predict Sing's moods and actions only by the twitch of an eyebrow, he was left floundering now. They were strangers, now.

Sing was sliding more and more into Ash's world and Lao, in his dark corner, hated it.

 


	8. Kidnapped

**Things to do when you're being kidnapped**

**A list**

 

First things first: Avoid being kidnapped at all costs.

 

“How can I avoid this?!” you may scoff and scorn and you are right to do so. There are situations entirely beyond your control, we are aware, and sometimes you might not even know that you have entered such a situation before it is way too late for a polite retreat. Still, there are some simple rules that, if followed, might help you stay as safe as you possibly can.

Stay in familiar places where you know your bearings.

Stay in areas with more than one exit.

If the evil-doers know the layout of your home, try to think ahead and avoid being herded into a trap. If there are unsavory looking strangers about, hide in an inconspicuous space. If help is on the way, wait for them to arrive. If no rescue is likely to come, stay still and stay silent, and your enemies might go away.

 

So, the unthinkable has happened and enemies have gotten a hold of you. What should you do?

 

Alert people to your plight, if possible, but do it with the utmost secrecy. Drop things of your personal belongings along the way, for example, or leave any kind of mark – visual or sensual – that may help law-enforcement to find you.

Keep calm and analyze the situation. The more you know about the people in whose power you are residing, the greater your overall chances at surviving the ordeal will be. Try to understand their command structure – who are the bosses, who are the followers? Are there any rivalries within the group of your captors? Are there persons more susceptible to compassion than others?

It may take a while to gain these insights but, and we will be honest with you, you won't know how long your captivity will last.

Keep your mind occupied. Keep your senses sharp.

If a fool-proof way to freedom presents itself, take it but on all accounts _**never antagonize your captors!** **Never call attention to yourself in times of crisis!**_

The inherent value that let your captors keep you alive until now might vanish in so little as a second if an armed ---

 

“Ash!”

BANG! BANG!

“Skipper … _SKIPPER!_ ”

 


End file.
